Worcester.
_Mr. Collier's "Notes and Emendations:" Passage in "All's Well that Ends
Well."_--
"O you leaden messengers,
That ride upon the violent speed of fire,
Fly with false aim; move the still-peering air,
That sings with piercing, do not touch my lord!"
Such is the text of the first folio. MR. PAYNE COLLIER, at p. 162. of his
_Notes and Emendations_, informs us that the old corrector of his folio of
1632 reads _volant_ for "violent," _wound_ for "move," and _still-piecing_
for "still-peering."
Two of these substitutions are easily shown to be correct. In the
_Tempest_, Act III. Sc. 3., we read:
"The elements,
Of whom your swords are tempered, may as well
_Wound the loud winds, or with bemockt-at stabs_
_Kill the still-closing waters_."
What is _still-closing_ but _still-piecing_, the silent reunion after
severance? What is to _wound the loud winds_ but to _wound the air that
sings with piercing_?
But as to the third substitution, I beg permission through your pages to
enter a _caveat_. If {427} we had no proof from the text of Shakspeare that
_violent_ is the correct reading, I fancy that any reader's common sense
would tell him that it is more an appropriate and trenchant term than
_volant_. "What judgment would _stoop_ from this to this?" _Volant_,
moreover, is not English, but French, and as such is used in _Henry V._;
but happily, in this case, we have most abundant evidence from the text of
Shakspeare that he wrote _violent_ in the above passage. In _Henry VIII._,
Act I. Sc. 1., we have the passage,
"We may outrun,
By _violent swiftness_, that which we run at,
And lose by over-running."
In _Othello_, Act III. Sc. 3., we have the passage,
"Even so my bloody thoughts, with _violent pace_,
Shall ne'er look back."
These passages prove that _violent_ is a true Shakspearian epithet for
_velocity_. But how exquisitely appropriate is the epithet when applied to
the velocity of a ball issuing from the mouth of a cannon: and here we have
full confirmation from _Romeo and Juliet_, Act V. Sc. 1., where we read:
"As _violently_ as hasty powder fir'd
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb."
I trust that MR. COLLIER will not, in the teeth of such evidence,
substitute _volant_ for _violent_ in correcting the text of his forthcoming
edition.